This invention relates to tamper evident caps in general and particularly to such caps that can have utility for refrigerant service ports.
Refrigerant service ports are commonly found in airconditioning systems used in automobiles and homes in which such systems require replenishment of a refrigerant from time to time. The service ports so provided for this purpose are usually screw-threaded, check-valve devices secured to a refrigerant flow pipe in some easily accessible area so that a supply hose associated with a supply container of refrigerant can be secured--that is, screw-threaded--to the service port, and the pressurized refrigerant in the container can then be transferred to the empty system. Because these service ports are accessible and since the refrigerant itself may have a high market value--owing to market forces and the cost of environmental protective measures--such service ports, whether located on a system's flow pipes or on the refrigerant supply container itself, are vulnerable to unauthorized entry, so that theft or even inadvertent loss of the refrigerant from such systems are possible. It is evident, then, that such service ports as described above become the weak link in the chain of security between the supplier and the consumer.